


A Throne For a Pig

by wingspear



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Dubious Consent, F/M, Falling In Love, Feral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Maledom, Mental Health Issues, Porn With Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24005806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingspear/pseuds/wingspear
Summary: It took five years to turn Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd into a monster.Now it’s time for Byleth to turn him back. But the disgraced prince is no simple beast, and with the Kingdom in ruins and the Imperial Army drawing ever closer, Byleth starts to wonder how far she’ll go to drag Dimitri back into the light.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 30
Kudos: 114





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic is dark! There is a lot of dubious consent, typical war-time violence and feral as all hell Dimitri. But I guess it's still shippy, so please only read if you like a lot of angst before the fluff... Spoilers for Azure Moon route.

The ruins of Garreg Mach were now nothing more than a ghost story.

Clothes damp and hair matted with algae, Byleth glanced up at the monastery on the hill as she wrung the water out of her shirt. The villager who had pulled her from the river was standing with his back turned a few yards away, allowing Byleth at least a little privacy as she tried to compose herself.

Five years was a long time to have been out cold. The last thing she could really remember was losing her footing as she slipped amongst the rubble into the abyss during that last battle. She could still see in her mind’s eye the dragon-form of Rhea accosted by demonic beasts under Imperial command, roaring in anguish as Byleth fell and fell and fell…

There surely had been no bottom to that abyss, otherwise she would be dead. Had she survived in the same manner as when that strange, dark warlock had banished her? Byleth closed her eyes and tried to recall the five years of her missing memory until her head began to pound. It was no use. All she could remember was an impenetrable darkness and then Sothis’ voice, reprimanding her for sleeping for far too long…

The theatrical clearing of a throat behind her jolted Byleth from her reverie. She hurriedly pulled her shirt back on and fastened her cloak over her shoulders. Her clothes were still somewhat wet, but Byleth was no stranger to living with discomfort. Back during her time in Jeralt’s band of mercenaries she was often trapped in the rain or swimming through rivers, fully clothed and all. Still, as she got to her feet and brushed the dirt from her thighs, the villager gave her a pitying expression.

“Come back with me,” he said. “My wife’ll have some broth cooking, and maybe she has a spare dress, too.”  


The offer was a sweet one— especially during times of war— but Byleth’s gaze travelled back up to the monastery again. There had to be a reason she had woken up here, so close to Garreg Mach; it was the start of everything, after all, and the one place in her life that had at least offered her some answers instead of more questions. She shook her head. “Thank you,” she replied, “But I need to find my students.”

The villager’s jaw dropped. “Students?! There’s no kids up there anymore, lass. Just bandits and… a _monster_.”

Byleth frowned. “A monster?”

She watched as the villager looked around sheepishly, as if by mentioning the monster it might suddenly leap out and attack with a vengeance. “They say there’s a wild beast up there,” he explained. “Imperial soldiers try to slay it, but they never come back.”

Recollections of Rhea, tooth and fang and one hundred glittering scales, flashed through Byleth’s head. She said, quickly, “Has anyone ever seen it?”

“And lived to tell the tale? Not that I know of.”

A dragon form would be hard to hide and if Rhea really was still in the monastery why was she not gathering the Knights of Seiros to fight the Imperial Army? Byleth sighed. It was far more likely that the alleged monster was a demonic beast left behind by Edelgard when she’d attacked the monastery. Byleth settled her hand over the hilt of the Sword of the Creator by her hip. Even if her students weren’t still at Garreg Mach, perhaps she would be doing the neighbouring villages a favour by ridding the empty monastery of a feral beast.

The villager’s eyes flickered down to her sword. His rugged face fell. “You can’t still be thinking of going up there, can you?”

“I’m pretty handy with a sword,” Byleth smiled. “Thank you, though. For everything.”

“Look, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the villager moaned. “Throwing your life away like this, after I rescued you from the river and all. At least let me accompany you some of the way. My village is at the foot of the hill.”

Byleth nodded. The sun was low in the sky, heralding the beginning of dusk. Despite her five missing years, the landscape before her was as familiar as ever. The sparse farmland was a lot more overgrown than she remembered, but the buildings were the same stout little things she’d weaved her way through on many a visit into the markets outside the monastery’s dominion. The hill she’d climbed countless times— either alone or at Jeralt’s side, silently appraising the beauty that surrounded Garreg Mach. Even in the midst of war, gutted by Imperial forces, Garreg Mach remained beautiful. Beautiful and sad.

The villager left her with another warning before she ascended the hill, one that she chose to politely ignore. According to his brief recounting of the past five years, the area had been subject to frequent surveying by the Imperial Army, searching for the traitorous Knights of Seiros. The Kingdom was divided in loyalty and Fhirdiad was under the emperor— _Edelgard’s_ — rule. The Leicester Alliance was also apparently dealing with its own internal conflicts, helmed by Claude. Dimitri had not been mentioned, and Byleth hated herself for being too afraid to ask what had happened to the young man she’d watched the stars with on the Goddess Tower, what seemed like a lifetime ago. If Edelgard had taken Fhirdiad, it was likely Dimitri had been defeated protecting his nation— and a defeated prince was usually a dead one.

Byleth spent her short journey considering her plan of action. She could, she decided, traipse the surrounding area and beyond for news of Rhea’s whereabouts; before the attack, Rhea had promised to explain everything to her, and Byleth longed to understand the true meaning of her missing years and the throne room inside her head. She wanted to understand what Jeralt had kept from her and, most importantly, she wanted to harness whatever mysterious power she had to at least try and restore a semblance of peace to Fódlan.

Seeing Garreg Mach’s abandoned skeleton up close tugged at Byleth’s heart a little too harshly. Catching her breath slightly from her climb, she took in the debris that littered the outer bailey. Part of the battlements had fallen due to the demonic beasts and the ballistas of the Imperial Army and clearly no one had stuck around long enough to attempt to repair them. Two of the towers were collapsed and the other, a little further up was crawling in ivy and half-buried in the growth that had begun to eat away at the stone. She examined it from a distance, frowning slightly. It had been a watchtower once— one she had never had reason to visit before now— but it would surely prove an ideal height for her to get a better view of the monastery as the sun went down.

This close, the evidence of a tragic battle occurring here was all the more obvious. The ground was still torn a part by the boots of infantrymen and the hooves of the cavalry and every so often Byleth would spot a rusted blade or helmet, left abandoned in the dirt. She needed to stop dwelling on thememories of that time— of watching Edelgard advance closer and watching Dimitri become steadily more agitated with the thirst for her blood. That had not been a pleasant battle. It was one thing teaching adolescents to prepare themselves for war; quite another to watch them fight each other to the death.

A crow cawed in the distance. It was answered by another, and then another. Byleth peered through the brush and found the source of their cries. There were at least seven of them, flapping and crying towards the entrance to the watchtower. As she drew closer, the source of their excitement became all the more obvious; strewn across the stairs was corpse after corpse of Imperial soldier, torn a part by the birds and whatever had killed them.

_The monster_ , Byleth told herself. She put her hand on the hilt of her sword, immediately on guard. She had assumed that when the villager had told her of a beast in the monastery he had meant the interior of Garreg Mach. Although she was certain she could take on a demonic beast solo, the pure number of dead bodies reminded her that even a squad of soldiers had struggled to slay the creature.

As she approached the crows took to the air with disgruntled squawks and the furious flapping of wings. Byleth readied her blade. Was the monster inside the tower or was it prowling about outside, watching her in the thick undergrowth? She swallowed the breath stuck in her throat and crept towards the stairs. Up close, the massacre was uglier than Byleth could have imagined. The bodies were somewhat fresh and so the smell of them was still metallic. Each corpse was mangled beyond recognition, eyes plucked out of their skulls and armour stained with blood. It soaked into the grass and splattered across the stone, leading a dark crimson trail up into the watchtower. Just before the entrance a severed head wobbled precariously on a lance stuck into the earth. Flies crawled across the woman’s lifeless face, buzzing around the empty sockets of her skull and darting in and out of her open mouth where Byleth could see the steel butt of the weapon.

Byleth could believe that it was some manic beast that had torn through this Imperial squadron with relentless, feral hunger. But such a cruel desecration of a body like that was almost certainly _human_.

The sweat that settled on the back of her neck was cold, even as the sun lingered low in the sky behind her. Byleth stepped over the pile of the dead at the foot of the stairs and began to climb the winding stone staircase. With the waning light slipping in through the arrow-slit windows, Byleth could see the blood and gore that decorated the walls, clearly once belonging to yet more Imperial soldiers who lay slumped over, their weapons abandoned. The ascent was a precarious one, the steps difficult to navigate with the sheer number of the dead. Byleth was glad she had trained as a thief, her footsteps light, and was gladder still for it when the stench reached her nose— blood, urine, feces, the lair of some wild animal.

Only, it was not a wild animal; of that she was certain. Byleth harboured a sinking suspicion of who the alleged monster could be. There was only one man she knew that was strong enough to kill like a beast and there was perhaps only one man who could be hounded by Imperial soldiers to this degree. 

She heard the muttering before she saw the creature, crouched in the shadows and surrounded in thick, bristly fur. Her still heart sank with a mixture of relief and dread when the setting sun filtered into the watchtower’s large, open window, chasing away the darkness and revealing bright blond hair and the glimmer of a bloody spear. The man himself was bloody; it was stuck in his hair and smeared across his face. It matted the thick pelt he wore around his shoulders and the gleam of his armour was hidden almost entirely by dried viscera. The muttering stopped. Dimitri lifted his head as Byleth stepped into the room, regarding her with one icy blue eye.

“I should have known you would be haunting me one day as well.”

Byleth frowned. It was not what she would have expected Dimitri’s first words to her to be, not after five years a part. Five difficult years, judging by Dimitri’s ruined appearance. His once noble visage was gone, replaced with filth and neglect. She took a few steps closer and hated the way Dimitri tore his gaze away, his shoulders tense.

“I’ll kill her,” he snarled. “I promise, I’ll kill her.”

“Dimitri—“

“I’ll tear her head from her body, I’ll make her pay, I’ll gut her like an animal—“

“Dimitri!”

Dimitri’s one eye jerked upwards from underneath the greasy strands of his unkempt hair. It narrowed as it focused in on her outstretched hand. “I’m not a ghost,” Byleth told him, although she had been likened to one before. Silent. Deadly. The Ashen Demon. After returning from the dead, could she really blame him for such an assumption?

Byleth wasn’t sure if she expected Dimitri to take her hand or not but she couldn’t help the stab of rejection as he thrust his face away, his grip tightening on his spear. Byleth crouched next to him hoping that her very proximity might convince him that she was not a spectre. This close, the odour of him was worse. Her nose wrinkled involuntarily at the reek of stale sweat, infection and rotting gore. Dimitri growled, “Don’t look at me like that. I told you. I’ll kill her.”

He surely meant Edelgard. Byleth shook her head. “It’ll be alright, Dimitri. I’ve come back.”

She watched the play of emotions that flitted across Dimitri’s desperate expression. His scowl wavered and he dared to look at her again, flinching when Byleth reached over to tuck his overgrown hair behind his ear. His sudden movement caused him to wince and Byleth noticed the dried blood on his neck, soaking the gambeson beneath his armour.

“You’re really alive?”

“You’re injured.”

Dimitri’s shock turned to dull acceptance. “Then have you come here to kill me?”

“Of course not,” Byleth frowned. “I came back to find my students. To find Rhea. And I found you.”

“They’re all dead,” Dimitri growled. Byleth tried not to believe him— after all, hadn’t he thought herself dead, until just a moment ago? She leaned back as Dimitri used his spear to haul himself to his feet. Five years had given him at least eight more inches in height. He towered over her, formidable in his dark armour and the grizzled pelt of some mighty beast. “That _woman_ killed them all.”

“Edelgard?”

The very name seemed to incite some sort of unbearable fury with in him. Byleth rose herself and took a wary step backwards as Dimitri seemed to grow even further in his indignation, his face twisted in anger. This was the monster that had savagely mauled every Imperial soldier that lay dead in this watchtower and despite herself, Byleth felt apprehension tickle her belly. Madness had taken the prince, a feral mania that Byleth was at a loss on how to fix. He roared, and his gauntleted fist slammed into the wall. Dust and pebbles clattered to the ground from the roof of the tower.

Byleth tried to conjure the professor and not the mercenary, despite how desperately she wished to unsheathe her sword just a little. “You’ll hurt yourself,” she reprimanded.

“I’ll kill her,” Dimitri repeated. “I’ll kill everyone who deserves to die.”

Byleth sighed. “At least let me heal you first,” she said, staring pointedly at the slither of that injury he was hiding at his shoulder. “You won’t be killing anyone if you die of an infection.”

Judging by the expression of displeasure on his face, Dimitri didn’t much like the insinuation that a mere cut might be the death of him. “I don’t need your help,” he snarled, but he began to release the clasps of his cape anyway. The animal pelt fell heavily to the ground, followed by the pauldrons and then the breastplate. Dusk had finally begun to take what little light was left in the tower and so Byleth left Dimitri to get undressed in private as she rummaged through her waterlogged belongings. She still had the fire spell learned in a slightly damp tome and there was enough of the brush growing through the tower window to at least have some tinder. She also found a concoction and a knife, which she used to hack away part of her cloak.

With a dim fire burning and a rag now wet with the potion, she turned back to Dimitri. He had pulled open the top half of his gambeson, revealing the ugly cut at his shoulder. All things considered, it probably hadn’t been a particularly life-threatening injury but Byleth doubted that the prince had bothered to clean it— or himself— in the days that had passed since his battle with the soldiers. 

“You’ll need to sit down here so I can see it better,” Byleth said, motioning towards the flickering embers. Dimitri’s jaw set and his eye narrowed, as if he was debating being contrary, before he finally relented and folded himself down next to the fire. He looked even more haunted in the firelight, the shadows settling into the gaunt hollow of his cheekbones and his sunken eye.

Byleth leaned forwards to examine the cut. It wasn’t deep but would probably need stitches if not for Byleth and her modest healing potential. It was slick with infection and practically buried beneath dried sweat, blood and dirt. Dimitri hissed when Byleth used the damp rag to clean away the gore but thankfully didn’t move away. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m probably not as good at this as Mercedes.”

“Just get on with it,” Dimitri snapped.

Byleth frowned but continued anyway. Concentrating on her faith was still a somewhat new experience, one that reminded Byleth of the depths of her imagination and an expansive dark throne room home to a sleeping girl. She closed her eyes until she felt the tingle of warmth at her fingertips and when she opened them again the discoloured flesh around the cut on Dimitri’s shoulder had faded to an irritated pink and a bumpy scab pulled the flesh back together again. Power still lingered in her outstretched hand and she said, despairingly, “Are you injured anywhere else?”

Dimitri didn’t say anything, which also meant he didn’t say _no_. Byleth impatiently jerked open the rest of his gambeson, revealing more of his naked skin. He was caked in blood and unsure whether it was his own or some nameless Imperial soldier’s, Byleth began to scrub yet more grime away from his body. She wondered if this is what exasperated parents felt like for reckless children and almost smiled remembering Jeralt’s worried hands bandaging up her cuts and bruises. Dimitri watched impassively but Byleth could feel his steady heartbeat begin to throb more urgently. 

He had a splinter from an arrow shaft lodged deep underneath his armpit. She removed it as gently as she could but Dimitri still jerked and growled like a wild animal, even as she pumped more of the Goddess’ power into his body. There was another deep cut just below his left pectoral and Byleth wondered if he’d been ambushed without armour, or if somehow the enemy’s blade had sliced under his breastplate. Almost by instinct she let her magic guide her fingers to where Dimitri was hurting the most. There was swelling around his chest too and Byleth used the last of her power to heal his broken ribs. Dimitri released a long moan of relief and when Byleth finally looked back up at his face she saw that there was an unusual flush across the bridge of his nose and his eye was fixated on the swell of her chest, the cleft between her breasts.

Byleth had always liked her uniform, but now she was suddenly aware of just how much it was revealing. When was the last time Dimitri had been touched by a friendly hand, instead of one intent of harming him? Byleth suddenly remembered a rare and awkward conversation she’d had with Jeralt as an adolescent, about the difference between men and women. She was thankful that armour still concealed Dimitri’s lower half, thus providing him with his dignity still.

“I’m tapped out,” Byleth apologised. At the sound of her voice, Dimitri’s solitary eye flickered up to regard her fiercely, as if he were only just now seeing her face for the first time. She brought her hand away but Dimitri was faster. He captured her wrist with the violent precision of a predator, ignoring Byleth’s futile tugs with his superior strength.

Byleth tried to claw his fingers away with her free hand. “I need to rest,” she told him, exasperated. “We learned about this at the academy, remember? Magic is limited.”

“I don’t want your magic,” Dimitri explained. He grabbed her other wrist and got to his knees, his grip on her tight.

“No, Dimitri,” Byleth growled. “You’re my student.”

“That student died.”

Byleth felt the professor give way to the mercenary. She struggled as he pinned her wrists to the ground but trying to shrug off Dimitri was like trying to shrug off a giant boar. His strength was so _easy_ that Byleth was almost impressed with the remarkable control he had once demonstrated over it as a student. She had never once imagined that she would one day be at the mercy of it and she racked her brain for some kind of weakness she could exploit. 

The flagstones were cold against her back, but Dimitri was warm when he lowered his body over hers. Underneath the clinical smell of the concoction he still reeked of death and his face was entirely impassive as he transferred her wrists to one hand and used his free one to rip away the armour protecting his groin. Byleth thought fast. Her eyes locked on to the deep cut in his shoulder and with all her mustered strength she slammed her head into it, relieved when Dimitri’s fingers faltered on her wrists as he grunted in pain.

It was a mere second of relief but that was all Byleth, a seasoned warrior, needed to roll from underneath Dimitri’s torso and leap to her feet. Dimitri followed her, his expression dangerous as she drew the Sword of the Creator in a flash, the glowing blade throbbing with orange light. Dimitri was fast and strong; Byleth didn’t doubt that he had enough time to grab his own weapon and despite her own military prowess, she did not think that would be a battle she could win. Dimitri might be only in his open gambeson, but Byleth had seen those soldiers at the foot of the tower. The Prince of Faerghus was no ordinary man— he was a monster.

Like a beast, Byleth hoped Dimitri would give up on difficult prey. They regarded each other, Byleth conjuring the familiar expression of the Ashen Demon despite her stomach sinking in regret. She did not want to hurt Dimitri, but she also did not want Dimitri to hurt _her_. Eventually, Dimitri loped away, collecting his spear and what remained of his armour before crawling back into the shadows again. She saw him begin to dress, muttering to what she assumed to be the dead as he did up the buckles. Now that he was further away, the regret in her belly washed over her like a wave, submerging her in sadness.

_This is the consequence of a five year disappearance,_ Byleth told herself, thrusting her blade back into her sheath. _Just what happened to Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd?_

She was too nervous to sleep. Instead she leaned against the cold stone wall and observed Dimitri from a distance. Once she let her guard down, would he be back? Or had his sudden lust dissipated, leaving him lonely and haunted in the dark? She thought about his injuries that he’d left to fester with neglect and she thought about the ghosts he promised he would avenge. She thought about his missing eye, his gore-splattered spear and also about the way he had pinned her to the ground and stared down at her with longing. Once upon a time, she would have entertained the idea that she might have been falling in love with Prince Dimitri, who laughed at Alois’ bad jokes, trained with Felix despite his taunts and studied hard into the night, his golden hair falling over his eyes and his supernatural strength subdued, under control. Perhaps the beast was right and that Dimitri was dead now. Or perhaps that Dimitri could return, just like Byleth had, and who better to orchestrate a resurrection than herself, who had escaped death twice already?

Byleth had never been very good at staying awake. The low flames began to blur and the darkness took over, lulling her into the throes of sleep to the sound of Dimitri’s frenzied muttering.


	2. Chapter 2

Byleth did not often dream, and when she did it was usually of an empty throne room and the voice of the Goddess, reprimanding her for sleeping for far too long.

This dream was different. It was a memory, one that she had once treasured. She still did. The moon was high above the monastery, pierced by the height of the Goddess Tower. The wyverns that flittered about the sky were gone now, replaced by an expanse of stars. The gatekeeper— Byleth’s odd yet unwavering acquaintance— had told her that if promises were made between lovers at the Goddess Tower, they would surely be fulfilled. And so she had not been surprised that it was Dimitri who found her alone, having escaped from the ballroom himself.

He looked dashing in his formal wear, if a little uncomfortable. His boyish face was slightly flushed and his hair was a little ruffled from the evening’s festivities. Dimitri had likely been coerced into dancing with the majority of the academy’s female population and so she could not blame him for seeking out some peace and quiet at the Tower. He looked somewhat shocked to see her, but they fell into easy conversation like old friends. It was so familiar to talk with Dimitri, the stalwart pillar of her academy inner circle. His words were laced with tragedy, his earnest wish to never lose anyone close to him again tugging at her still and silent heart strings.

Byleth wouldn’t let that happen. She was a mercenary, a fearless soldier. If anyone had the power to protect Dimitri and his friends, it was surely her. Back then, she’d been so confident in her own strength. But that was before the ground swallowed her up, eating away five years… that was before she found a pile of Imperial corpses and the lair of a monster…

Beside her, the young Dimitri doubled over, his shoulders shaking. Was he laughing? Crying? Byleth could only watch in horror as his form changed, his hair growing long and wild over his face. He clutched his left eye, blood so thick it was almost black dripping down his cheeks as he shook. Sharp, bristly fur like the pelt of a boar erupted from his back, splitting his coat and cascading down his spine. 

Byleth tried to grab for her sword but her fingers groped through air. This was the academy— a _ball_ , of all places— and she did not have her sword. She could do nothing but retreat towards the tower as Dimitri continued to grow in height, his fur mantle thick and foreboding as he rounded on her. She had nowhere to run to; the drop from the tower would kill her and the door was locked behind her. Trapped like a prey animal, Byleth looked on in fear as Dimitri stalked forwards, his gait predatory, blood dripping from his ruined face. Something was thundering in her chest, an alien _thumpthumpthump_ that rattled her very bones. But that couldn’t be right. Byleth didn’t have a heartbeat.

She did not have time to consider this new development for much longer. Dimitri stopped before her, his chest heaving as he panted like an animal. “Don’t—“ Byleth tried to say, but her words turned to a scream as Dimitri lunged forwards, drowning her in thick, heavy fur—

Byleth jerked and wriggled, desperate to escape. The boar pelt slipped from her shoulders and onto the floor of the watchtower as she scrambled from under it, her breath caught in her throat. Her skin felt alive with anxiety and it took her a few seconds to realise that the fur cloak was not actually attached to the prince.

Above her, Dimitri whirled on the heel of one foot, his lance piercing the air so quickly that it was merely a blur of blue and silver. Byleth caught his face furrowed in a brief moment of concentration before he jerked his chin towards where she sat, his one eye narrowing.

“You sleep too much,” Dimitri rumbled, lowering the spear. He had clearly been practicing his drills. “It’s hours past sunrise.”

Byleth looked from the disgraced prince to the hefty boar pelt she had just thrust away. Had he put it on her while she slept? Why? Because it was cold? That hardly seemed possible, considering the way Dimitri had been acting last night. She watched warily as Dimitri propped his spear against the stone wall and then picked up his cloak one-handed, as if the weight of the animal fur held absolutely no significance to him.

The casual indifference in his motions made Byleth see red. “Dimitri,” she barked. “Are you feeling more lucid this morning?”

“What do you mean?”

“Last night,” Byleth said. “You attacked me.”

Dimitri didn’t reply. He just continued to gaze down at her, the boar pelt hanging from his fingers. With an easy strength that Byleth tried not to consider impressive, he reattached the cloak to his armour, as if he hadn’t just been accused of assault. 

“ _Dimitri_ ,” she pressed, trying to summon the strictness of her voice five years ago, when she’d been a professor at this very monastery.

There was a moment’s pause, where Byleth was sure that Dimitri was going to apologise— that whatever cold facade he had erected during these past five years was going to melt behind the warmth of his old self; honourable, stoic Dimitri who had met her at the Goddess Tower all those years ago. Instead he took a step forwards that had Byleth jumping to her feet in a flash, pressing herself against the wall as Dimitri advanced.

_Foolish_ , Byleth groaned to herself. Just like she had in her dream she put her hand on the hilt of her sword, relieved it was there even despite her reluctance to draw her blade on her old ally again. She gritted her teeth as Dimitri’s outstretched arms blocked off her escape route, his gauntleted fingers pressed tight against the stone wall.

“Lucid?” he repeated slowly, tasting the word on his tongue. “I’m a beast. A monster. I’m just following my nature.”

“You’re not any of those things—“

Dimitri leaned in close. Forgetting the wall behind her, Byleth jumped and winced at the sudden crack in her skull. “Are you afraid of me, Professor?” he asked, lip curling. His face was still splattered with the blood of men and women he had killed.

“Of course not,” Byleth growled. “I don’t know what happened to you, Dimitri. But you’re still my student.”

“Hah! Well, you should be. I told you already. That student you once knew died a long time ago. Now I’m just a wretched killer like the rest of them.”

Byleth frowned, forcing herself to keep stubbornly looking into that cold blue eye of his. Showing any sign of weakness in front of this new, feral Dimitri seemed like a bad idea— as much as she hated to admit it, there _was_ something scary about the prince now. The bodies that were strewn across the steps of the monastery were more akin to the carcasses left by wild animals, not to mention the way he had pushed her down onto the flagstones and crawled on top of her as if he had abandoned all etiquette…

An embarrassed blush tickled Byleth’s cheeks. Dimitri held her gaze for a moment longer before he peeled himself away from the wall and recollected his spear. “There’s a scent in the air,” he said.

“Perhaps it’s you,” Byleth commented, the hand on her sword falling to her side again. “When was the last time you washed?”

“Rats,” Dimitri continued, artfully ignoring her snide remark. His fingers tightened their grip on his weapon. “There’s filthy rats crawling all over this place.”

“There’s always been rats in the monastery—“

Dimitri spun around. “ _Human_ rats. Thieves who’ve come here to gut Garreg Mach for every last bit of gold. As if that woman’s crusade against the Church wasn’t enough.”

The venom in Dimitri’s voice as he spoke the word _woman_ made it very clear to whom he was referring to. Byleth sighed. She too was finding it hard to see reason in the attack Edelgard had orchestrated on the Church of Seiros but she could not help but remember Edelgard as a student— diligent, proud, a fantastic leader of the Black Eagles house. Five difficult years had clearly seen Dimitri succumb to madness and Byleth wondered what it had done to Edelgard in Enbarr, and even to Claude von Riegan, wherever he was in Fódlan or beyond.

What, too, had it done to the rest of the Blue Lions? If they were still alive in the ruins of the Kingdom somewhere, were they desperately trying to find their missing prince? And just how would they react if they could see Dimitri now?

“Are you going to stop them?” Byleth asked eventually, trying not think about what wicked fate had befallen Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain and the rest. She wasn’t worried about thieves and she didn’t imagine there was much left in what remained of Garreg Mach for rogues to take anyway. 

“I’m going to _kill_ them,” Dimitri corrected. “You better stay out of my way.”

“Thieves need to eat too,” Byleth said, although she doubted this current Dimitri understood diplomacy. He paced like a cage animal, his fingers flexing over his spear in agitation. “You should at least scope the place out first. See how many there are.”

“It doesn’t matter how many there are.”

“It will when you’re outnumbered,” Byleth argued. “Or are you just looking to get yourself killed? I thought you needed to defeat Edelgard.”

“Defeat her?” Dimitri rounded on her, furious. “I said I’ll kill her. Rip her head from her body with my bare hands.”

Byleth loathed the fact that she was fairly certain that Dimitri actually _was_ capable of such a barbaric act. Despite Dimitri’s insistence that he would march into Enbarr and behead the Emperor himself, he didn’t seem to be making much progress. Byleth wondered how long he would have stayed in this tower, waiting for more soldiers to find him if she had not found him first. Trying to conjure sympathy for the prince despite the events of last night, Byleth said, “I’m going to come with you. We’ll do this _smartly_.”

“Do what you want,” Dimitri shrugged his massive shoulders. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Byleth turned her attention to the world outside the watchtower. The sun was embarrassingly high in the sky, reminding Byleth of just how long she had slept for. She wondered when Dimitri had woken up, if he’d woken up at all. It would not surprise her to learn that the man didn’t sleep— that instead he crouched in the dark and talked to ghosts, fuelled tirelessly by his desperate desire for vengeance. Knowing what Dimitri was now, Byleth couldn’t help but feel sorry for Edelgard if she ever found herself at the pointed end of that gruesome spear. Her death by Dimitri’s hand was likely to be a slow and painful one.

Despite Dimitri’s vocal dismissal of her company, he seemed to wait for her as she rummaged through the belongings of the soldiers he’d slaughtered. She found mostly sparse collections of coinage, stamped with the banks of Enbarr, but also a couple of rations. She had not eaten since waking up in the river, which meant she had not eaten in five years; the thought almost made Byleth smile in grim humour. It seemed whatever power the Goddess had bestowed upon her, it was determined to keep her alive by magical means.

If Byleth remembered correctly, it would take at least another hour and a half to reach the foot of Garreg Mach and the inner bailey with its once bustling markets and living quarters. The road was probably dangerous and while Byleth was sure Dimitri would prefer the faster route she wanted to lead him through the trees. It was not just brigands that made her apprehensive; who knew what had decided to make a home of Garreg Mach in their five year absence, and she would rather the element of surprise be in her favour. Amazingly, Dimitri followed her without complaint. She supposed that maybe he _did_ have a bone of self-preservation in his body; after all, he had survived this long.

They walked in relative silence. Without any conversation, it was easy to notice how much livelier the forest was due to the five year absence of people. The undergrowth was thick and more often than not Byleth would have to scramble to keep her footing over thorny bushes and twisting tree roots. Dimitri forced his way through the foliage with the clumsy grace of a wild boar. Animals made way for him in fear; flocks of wood pigeons erupting into the canopy above and the occasional startled buck leaping away between the trees. Eventually the trickle of a stream reached Byleth’s ear. It would do well to fill up their canteens and perhaps she would even be able to convince Dimitri to wash the blood from his face.

The stream running through the trees wasn’t very big but the water looked clear. She held out her hand. “Give me your spear,” she said. “It’s going to rust if you don’t clean it. We had an entire semester on weapon maintenance. Don’t you remember?”

Dimitri just grunted. He crouched near the stream and dipped his spear into the water. Almost immediately, a faint cloud of red evaporated from it. Byleth watched him absently as he began to run his hand down the tip of the spear, removing the stringy specks of viscera from underneath its point. While he was distracted, she tore off another strip from her cloak and submerged it— but she needn’t have bothered. As soon as Dimitri was finished with his spear he cupped his hands into the stream and splashed his face, rubbing the blood and grime away. While he still wasn’t necessarily _clean_ , it was nice to be able to look at him without the layer of dirt. 

Due to the density of the trees, it almost felt like Garreg Mach had snuck up on _them_ and not the other way around. As the forest thinned, the impressive stone wall guarding the inner bailey met them. What had once been an impenetrable protection for the Officer’s Academy was now a crumbled pile of brick and rubble. Ballistas had torn through the defences and left the place free to pillage. Byleth tried to steel an unfamiliar and sudden uprise of her emotions. It was strange to think that once upon a time, she would have half-heartedly called whatever stronghold Jeralt let his mercenaries linger as home; now home was Garreg Mach, and it lay hurt and injured before her.

Dimitri wasted no time in prowling the area, looking for the best route inside. Byleth instead kept her eyes and ears sharp. The only things she could hear were the birds chirping in the trees and the occasional mutter from Dimitri. Byleth craned her neck and looked up towards the cathedral. It wasn’t as tall as she remembered— a ballista had probably gotten it, too— but next to it the Goddess Tower remained standing, much the same as it had in her dream. Her gaze returned towards Dimitri’s turned back with the black and white fur cloak over his hunched, feral shoulders and Byleth couldn’t prevent the shiver that ran through her veins.

They crept silently around the back of the monastery and eventually came across the training grounds. Byleth was only able to see what it was because here the wall had caved in completely, revealing the old arena to the elements. Rubble littered the ground, half-submerging the lifeless body of the demonic beast that had clearly felled the wall five years ago. Its fringed mask was cracked and while Byleth doubted it was still alive after enduring the collapse of masonry she couldn’t help but reach out and try to stop Dimitri as he got too close. He shrugged her off, as if she were no more irritating than a fly, and gazed down at the creature in utter distaste. He tapped his lance against the mask and when it did not react, Byleth released a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

“Be careful,” she muttered, as Dimitri’s attention turned instead to scrambling over the rubble and into the training grounds. As usual, the prince ignored her.

The training grounds were ransacked entirely. What had once been an arena filled to the brim with weapons was now nothing more than dust and decaying practice dummies. Straw flittered across the ground in the slight breeze. Seeing Dimitri pace like a beast in a coliseum was strangely familiar— how often had she supervised the practice of her students, correcting Dimitri’s form with a sword, or trying to convince Felix to train his aim with a bow and arrow? The wooden doors were wide open, displaying the familiar dormitories of Garreg Mach like an offering. Only a few yards away was Byleth’s old room and she was struck with the sudden desire to go inside and see what still remained.

_My ring_ , Byleth remembered. _Jeralt’s journal…_

It was probably useless to consider her own desires, when she was so utterly at the mercy of Dimitri’s. The prince stormed out of the gates with purpose, his head whipping back and forth like he really could catch the scent of his prey on the wind. Irritation pooled at the pit of her stomach. She’d always had to practice patience as a teacher, but the overwhelming urge to smack some sense into Dimitri was beginning to battle more furiously with her sympathy. The ideal outcome of this bandit rout would be Byleth greatly underestimating Dimitri’s monstrous strength; which she couldn’t be. She _knew_ how strong the Prince of Faerghus was. She’d watched him break lances in two just by sparring with them. The reality was that Dimitri did not care whether he lived or died in his quest for vengeance, and he was going to plough through dozens of bandits in the same manner as how he would plough through Enbarr— alone and single-minded until he was gutted for his trouble.

Byleth felt a scowl threaten to twist her usually expressionless face. _I can’t let that happen_ , she told herself, pushing after Dimitri and readying her bow. There could be bandits anywhere— were they watching them even now, hidden on the bridge or in the cathedral with their own bowstrings drawn? It was eerily quiet in the monastery. The cats and dogs were gone. There wasn’t an owl in sight. The only sound was their footsteps and Dimitri’s heavy breathing.

The dormitories were empty, but the evidence of pillaging was as clear as day. Dressers were turned over, the drawers ripped right out. Mattresses had been slashed and floorboards peeled right up from the ground. Dimitri kicked amongst the litter, as if he might unearth a miniature bandit amidst the splintered wood and duck feathers. The first floor and second floor of the monastery had received much the same treatment. Byleth followed Dimitri silently as he stormed his way through familiar hallways with a vengeance, kicking down doors using his inhuman strength and dragging his lance across the stone walls when he found nothing more than dust and debris. She really did feel like a ghost, watching Dimitri become slowly more and more agitated from a distance.

Outside, the glass of the greenhouse was shattered, and the remains glimmered in the sunlight. Byleth remembered Dedue, carefully tending to the flowers with big, gentle hands. Now they were trampled and torn. The pond next to the greenhouse was swimming in duckweed and the pier was smashed and broken, rotting in the water. This time it was Flayn and Seteth who crossed her mind. Flayn, always watching her father reel in fish with child-like excitement. There was the dining hall, where Raphael and Caspar competed in outrageous inter-house competitions to see who could fit the most in their mouths to the morbid fascination of their classmates. Where Ashe would lean over her shoulder as she flipped a wolverine steak with practiced expertise. Now the tables were overturned and the kitchens were empty, caked in a layer of ashy dust. She followed Dimitri into the courtyards. The Imperial banner was the only one still hanging, jostling in the slight wind above the Black Eagles’ common room. She watched Dimitri tear it down in one tug, sending the metal pole rattling to the ground.

“There’s no one here, Dimitri,” she said, finally. If there had been thieves running around in Garreg Mach, surely they would have been ambushed by now. Dimitri was grunting like an animal as he explored the ruined classrooms, occasionally promising his invisible ghosts Edelgard’s head as he ran his lance across the ground. There was no way they wouldn’t have been heard, despite Byleth’s best efforts to keep quiet herself.

The cathedral was the last place they ventured. As the focal point of the monastery, it had clearly sustained some of the most deliberate damage. What little remained of the stained glass windows reflected pale green and red across the ornate floor. Stonework from the collapsed ceiling had completely destroyed the altar and Byleth felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as she took in the sunlight filtering through the broken ceiling. It would only take one misstep, one wobbly brick fallen at height… she didn’t bother calling out for Dimitri to be careful. He seemed entirely in his own world as he examined the mountain of rubble and the remainder of his desecrated religion.

Byleth left Dimitri to his own devices and instead stepped outside. Judging by the height of the sun in the sky it had to now be past noon. On her right, the Goddess Tower remained unscathed from the violence, glimmering softly in the daylight. She was joined sooner than she expected by Dimitri’s shadow, intimidating in its breadth as he stepped up behind her. “Let’s go,” he demanded. She turned, crossing her arms over her chest. Byleth thought she could see where impatience and agitation crawled under Dimitri’s skin, pushing him to find enemies where there were none.

“Where?” Byleth asked with a sigh. “I told you. There’s no one here.”

Dimitri scowled. Before she could step away his gauntleted fingers had curled across her forearm and she was being unceremoniously dragged towards the bridge of the Goddess Tower. For one horrifying moment Byleth remembered her dream and was convinced Dimitri was going to push her over the edge— instead he pointed into the distance. “There,” he growled. “There’s smoke.”

“Maybe it’s just a village,” Byleth suggested wearily.

“It’s not,” Dimitri replied. The conviction in his voice left little room for argument.

She had wanted him to be wrong; as they traipsed out of the main gate and into the bare bones of what used to be a bustling marketplace, Byleth decided silently that it made no sense for a village to thrive so close to the abandoned Garreg Mach. Not with bandits and Imperial soldiers patrolling it. Dimitri was a man possessed before her, his expression stony with his knuckles white where he clutched his spear.

They saw the smoke again twenty minutes before the bandit’s camp appeared, nestled in the brush and guarding the road that led into a small collection of farmhouses that Byleth supposed had once belonged to the families of soldiers or teachers based in Garreg Mach. Coming from the monastery, there was no way to hide their descent but Byleth still didn’t regret taking her original route through the trees that morning. The mercenary lifestyle had always instilled within her the strategy to always be in the position of ambush, not the other way around; now that she was assisting the Prince of Faerghus in his crazed mission of vengeance, it seemed strategy was low on the list of priorities. 

“We can’t just rush in,” Byleth tried to convince him. “We need a plan.”

“We have a plan,” Dimitri replied shortly. “We kill them.”

“Is that your answer to everything? Just kill them? What if you can’t kill them? What if they kill _you_?”

Dimitri’s chin lifted as they strode side-by-side, his one eye fixed firmly on his quarry in the distance. “Then they kill me.”

“If they kill you, you won’t be able to kill Edelgard,” Byleth pointed out, although she doubted bringing up Edelgard’s name would make Dimitri see sense. If anything, reminding him of the Emperor seemed to fan the flames of his bloodlust. She was surprised, then, when Dimitri just laughed. It was a cold and mirthless sound.

“It’s not just that woman, Professor. I’ll kill every last filthy animal that thinks it can trample over the weak.”

Byleth wondered if Dimitri considered himself weak, or perhaps one of the very things he wanted to destroy. What would Jeralt do in this situation? Try as she might, Byleth couldn’t find it in her to let Dimitri run off on his own. Garreg Mach might be a ghost of its former glory but she needed to keep ahold of her responsibility as a teacher otherwise she was sure the guilt of leaving Dimitri to his spectres for five years would eat her alive.

There was no element of surprise when they finally reached the perimeter of the bandit’s lair. The thieves appeared to be based mostly in the outdoors but there were makeshift walls and barricades that they had erected to protect their camp while looting the monastery and surrounding villages. Carts upon carts were stacked on top of each other and ominous, carved spikes protruded from the shallow trench they had dug around their tents and fires. Dimitri barrelled through them like a boar, wood snapping as he used one hand to tear the logs from the ground.

Byleth wasn’t sure how many bandits there were— it was something she would have known if she and Dimitri had scoped the place out beforehand and come back under the cover of dark. Now here, out in the open and under the afternoon sun, Byleth could only summon the Ashen Demon and deflect arrows with the blade of the Creator Sword as Dimitri engaged in melee contact. The bandits had clearly seen their approach in enough time to gather their weapons and decide on a formation. Dimitri was lost in a whirlwind of steel as he was swarmed from all sides.

Byleth tried to stay close to him, but she had her own assailants to worry about. She danced out of the way of a gauntleted bruiser, using the incredible length of her sword in order to keep her distance. The familiar song of battle rang in her ears as metal met metal, joined with the creak of bowstrings and the dying yells of Dimitri’s victims. Dimitri had already collected a body count around his feet but he was only one man with one weapon. Byleth watched in horror as he tugged his spear from the corpse of an archer and had no time to parry away a sword that sank just underneath his breastplate.

Blood dribbled down his lips. His freehand found the neck of his killer and _crushed_ , his strength titanic. It probably wasn’t enough.

_He’s going to die,_ Byleth thought as arrows rained down around her. She blinked and in a heartbeat they were back on the road, with the familiar trail of smoke from the camp billowing lazily into the afternoon sky. 

“—not just that woman, Professor,” Dimitri said. “I’ll kill every last filthy animal that thinks it can trample over the weak.”

“Dimitri,” she gasped. The image of that sword sliding through his chest was burned in her memory even as he lived and breathed before her. “Dimitri, we can’t just rush in there.”

Expressions didn’t come naturally to Byleth, but she had always figured that the divine pulse gave her emotion the same way it gave her one singular heartbeat and a shaky, terrible understanding of a future she only had a few opportunities to correct. If Dimitri seemed at all surprised by her fervor, he didn’t show it.

“I told you not to get in my way,” he growled, and that was that.

_I’ll stay closer this time,_ Byleth told herself through gritted teeth. _He was defenceless at the back. I’ll take out that swordsman._

It was not enough to kill Dimitri’s previous killer, because there were always other killers. Dimitri had five arrows sticking into his body before the final one tore through his throat like it was made of parchment. Byleth brought him back just as the bows turned upon her.

Dimitri’s golden hair gleamed in the sunlight. Ash-grey smoke mingled with the clouds in the sky. Dimitri said, “It’s not just that woman, Professor. I’ll kill every last filthy animal that thinks it can trample over the weak.”

The repetition of it was now so droll that Byleth had to fight not to roll her eyes at his exclamation. His fervent desire to kill anything in his way was definitely not as impressive as it had been before Byleth knew he was going to fail each time. They needed to be careful— there were too many of them, archers and swordsmen and even men in the heavy armour of fortress knights. “We should wait until sundown,” Byleth said breathlessly. “There’s too many. We’ll be outnumbered.”

“I told you, they’re just ra—“

Byleth interrupted him with a voice she didn’t know she possessed. “Listen to me!”

Dimitri rounded on her. There was something wretched in his gaze as he stared down at her with that one, frigid eye. “All I ever do is listen!”

_To ghosts_ , Byleth wanted to scream. _Not the living._

She followed him into the bandit’s den and watched, numb, as Dimitri’s lack of caution has him twisting into a trap, his foot falling into a pit and sending him to one knee. He managed to block one sword with his lance but a thief behind him grabbed his hair with a quickness natural to assassins. Byleth let the divine pulse throb through her as a dagger sunk under his jaw and pushed swiftly downwards in a spray of crimson.

This time, it was as far back as the cathedral. Byleth watched Garreg Mach from above, utterly exhausted. Nausea bubbled in her stomach, threatening to send her to her knees if she so much as considered reaching out for the Goddess’ power and using time to bring Dimitri back to life. She knew the divine pulse had limits— she couldn’t save Jeralt, and she probably couldn’t save Dimitri either.

“Let’s go,” Dimitri said behind her. 

Byleth sighed. “We should wait until night. We’ll have the advantage.”

“I don’t care about the advantage.”

She’d obviously been a pretty bad teacher then. Byleth turned to where Dimitri loomed over her, hair in his face and jaw set so tightly she imagined he might shatter his teeth. “Don’t go,” she pleaded, but it was impossible to plead with beasts.

Dimitri stared at her for a while longer, as if he was trying to figure out where this new desperation had come from. Could he see on her face how many times she had watched him die? Or could he see the lingering power of the goddess, now utterly depleted? “I need to kill them.”

Byleth was about to shout that he didn’t _need_ to kill anyone, when she saw it again; that little ghost of wretchedness in Dimitri’s blue gaze. She was a fool, for thinking that Dimitri was just fuelled by revenge. This was something deeper, something far more cruel. She remembered Felix warning her of the Prince of Faerghus’ true nature and she realised suddenly that perhaps Dimitri _did_ have a bloodlust he could not control.

_Goddess help me_ , Byleth prayed, more to herself than the child in that throne room, who would more likely be affronted by what she was about to do. As Dimitri turned to leave, Byleth lunged forwards. Her fingers curled into the fur around his neck and before Dimitri could snarl his indignation she had pulled his face closer to her own.

She was out of options. So she kissed the prince.


End file.
